10 years of marriage. Just like every other marriage, it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Things have always been mostly good, but when a couple major life-changing events took place after just 1 year into it... the birth of our daughter & the sudden death of my sister 9 months later... it was sometimes tough. I was simply trying to keep from being a mess & he was just trying to "fix" everything, not unlike any other typical male. But the point is we're in a good place now... a really good place. Maybe we've always been there & not realized it. I have a twinge of guilt every time I mention how happy I am in my life right now. Feeling really happy is an odd feeling when you've lost someone so close to you, so suddenly... but I'm there, in that place. No marriage is perfect. But it feels pretty awesome to get to a benchmark year like 10, & know that you're both in it for the long-haul & that you both feel very happy, very loved & very lucky to be together.
This past weekend was about celebrating all that, and at the last minute I wasn't sure it would happen. Bob's dad was taken back to the hospital again the night before we were scheduled to leave. I told him, "Look. This is our life right now. We are raising a child, while caring for an elderly parent with major health issues. If we don't go this weekend, we'll go another weekend. It's not like we can never go to Chicago." He said, "No. We're going. There's nothing I can do at the hospital anyway and we've both been looking forward to this. We're not missing it." He did drive over to the hospital that night at 10:00pm to meet up with him after the ambulance took him in. (His dad was released yesterday & all is back to "normal" with him though.)
On with the trip. We put Bryn on the bus Friday morning & left for the airport about an hour later. We were flying with Southwest & they only fly into Midway airport. We chose this airline/airport also because it was closer to our hotel. Chicago is just a short 1-hour flight. I think these guys fly back & forth all day long. We were scheduled to arrive at 1:10 & had made lunch reservations for 2:00 at Joe's Seafood. Everything was fine with the flight until we were getting prepared to make our final descent into Chicago. There was a loud noise on our side of the plane when the pilot went to open up the flaps on the wings. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but when we noticed we were soon flying over Lake Michigan (& shouldn't be), we knew something was up. Then they told us they would be landing at O'Hare instead & apologized for the inconvenience. A flight attendant kept telling an older lady infront of us that it wasn't an emergency landing "right now," but she didn't have any information to give her. She said they were landing at O'Hare because they have longer runways & they didn't want to take the chance with the short runways at Midway. My heart started racing. This is exactly why I hate us flying with Bryn at home. I told myself over & over again, "I am surviving this flight." Well, we landed at O'Hare, where there are NO Southwest gates, with emergency vehicles everywhere... police cars, ambulances, a fire truck... they were all waiting for us. I started shaking & crying as everyone started clapping & cheering. I just stared out the window, so no one could see how upset I was. After about 10 minutes of that I finally thought, "Ok... grab the camera & get a shot of this." We were almost away from the whole scene once I finally got myself composed...
Since Southwest has no gates at this airport, we were given the ok by Continental to use one of their gates. Southwest offered to take any passengers by bus to Midway (lots of people had connecting flights there) OR you could just leave on your own from there, which we chose to do. Southwest sent an email later that night to all the passengers explaining what happened, why they landed there & also gave each passenger $150 flight vouchers. Southwest always has the best customer service.
It took us an hour to get to our hotel by taxi with all the traffic, but I did NOT want to take the L. We had already contacted Joe's about our reservation & they said they'd put us down at 4:30 to see if we could make it by then. After that, they said, they were fully booked for the night. By the time we got to our hotel it was almost 4:00, so we asked the concierge if she'd call Joe's to see if we could get in before 4:30... we were REALLY hungry... & explained what had just happened with our flight. Joe's got us in & we enjoyed a small, very yummy lunch. We didn't want to eat a big meal because we had 7:15 dinner reservations!
Bob spoiled me (so what else is new?) all weekend, starting with a bottle of wine & chocolate-covered strawberries he'd arranged to have in our room before we arrived. We had a fantastic view of the city & the Chicago River from our room.
Then we had a knock on the door... a fruit plate & 2 bottles of water with a sweet note from our concierge hoping that after our "precarious landing" that we had a good weekend. Just one of the MANY reasons we LOVE the Westin...
Since we'd made our reservations for all of our restaurants through opentable.com, they all knew we were celebrating our anniversary & would bring us dessert with a candle in it. The carrot cake at Hub 51 was so good... as was everything we had for dinner.
We got up and ran on Saturday & Sunday morning before we headed out for the day. Lunch on Saturday was at Terzo Piano, located in the Art Institute of Chicago.
After lunch we walked across the street to Millennium Park. Saturday started out cool & SO foggy.
Had to hit the American Girl Doll store for a souvenier, plus we did some other shopping. One of the many things I love about Bob is that he just loves to be with me. Whether I'm scrapbooking, shopping, whatever, he wants to be there & enjoys it. We had the best time walking the streets of Chicago.
We had dinner on Saturday night at Shaws Crab House. We eat there EVERY SINGLE TIME we come to Chicago. Their seafood is SO good & we started dinner off with a dozen oysters. The other 3 restaurants where we dined this weekend, were based on recommendations from friends (all GREAT recommendations, too, I might add!) Shaws is just a place we love.
After dinner we went down the block to Andy's Jazz Club & listened to a jazz band for awhile.
It was a FUN weekend. And although our return flight was an hour late, it was a totally uneventful flight... the best kind of flight you can have. It's good to be back home with Bryn again.
Off to Zumba!
Newbie here...I am looking forward to our family vacation to Branson. I have not been in almost 10 years.